China protests after US warship sails near island
BEIJING: Beijing voiced displeasure yesterday after a US warship sailed near an artificial island in the disputed South China Sea, an operation that prompted the Chinese navy to warn off the American destroyer.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the actions of the USS John S McCain had violated Chinese and international law, ‘seriously’ impairing the country’s sovereignty and security.
“China is strongly dissatisfied with this,” Geng said in a statement, adding that Beijing would lodge an official protest with Washington.
The USS John S McCain destroyer sailed within six nautical miles of Mischief Reef — an artificial island built by China — on Thursday as part of a ‘freedom of navigation’ operation, a US official said.
The reef is part of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, which is the scene of rival claims between China and neighbouring countries.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US official told AFP a Chinese frigate sent radio warnings at least 10 times to the USS McCain.
“They called and said ‘please turn around, you are in our waters’,” the official said. “We told them we are a US (ship) conducting routine operations in international waters.”
The official said the interactions were all ‘safe and professional’, with the operation lasting about six hours from start to finish, but Geng said such operations ‘seriously endanger lives’.
The freedom of navigation operation was the third of its kind carried out by US since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The US move came four days after US, Australia and Japan denounced Beijing’s island-building and militarisation of the South China Sea on the sidelines of a security forum of the 10nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila.
China claims nearly all of the sea, through which US$5 trillion in annual shipping trade passes and which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits.
Its sweeping claims overlap with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei — all ASEAN members — as well as Taiwan.
But in recent years Beijing has managed to weaken regional resistance by courting some ASEAN members.
On Sunday China scored a coup when ASEAN ministers issued a diluted statement on the dispute and agreed to its terms on talks at the Manila meeting.
China insists that a muchdelayed code of conduct between it and ASEAN members over the disputed sea must not be legally binding, a demand to which Southeast Asian countries have so far acquiesced. — AFP